Brother Cadfael 18: The Summer of the Danes

willing to sell your guests back to you."
    "At least, then," said Owain, "give me your pledge that they shall come back to me unharmed when I do recover them, whether by purchase or by capture."
    "I do not spoil what I may wish to sell," agreed Otir. "And when I collect what is due to me, it will be from the debtor. That I promise you."
    "And I take your word," said Owain. "Send to me when you will."
    "And there is no more to be said between us two?"
    "As yet," said Owain, "there is nothing more. All your choices you have reserved. So do I reserve mine."
    Cadfael left the place where he had stood motionless and quiet, in the lee of the tent, and followed down through the mute ranks of the Danes as they drew aside to give the prince of Gwynedd clear passage back to his waiting horse. Owain mounted and rode, without haste now, more certain of his enemy than ever he had been since boyhood of his brother. When the fair head, uncovered to the sun, had twice dipped from sight and reappeared again, and was dwindling into a distant speck of pale gold in the distance, Cadfael turned back along the fold of the dunes, and went to look for Heledd and Mark. They would be together. Mark had taken upon himself, somewhat diffidently, the duty of keeping a guardian eye upon the girl's privacy. She might shake him off at will when she did not want him; when if ever she did want him, he would be within call. Cadfael had found it oddly touching how Heledd bore with this shy but resolute attendance, for she used Mark as an elder sister might, considerate of his dignity and careful never to open upon him the perilous weaponry she had at her disposal in dealing with other men, and sometimes had been known to indulge for her own pleasure no less than in hurt retaliation against her father. For there was no question but this Heledd, with her gown frayed at the sleeve and crumpled by sleeping in a scooped hollow of sand lined with grass, and her hair unbraided and loose about her shoulders in a mane of darkness burnished into blue highlights by the sun, and her feet as often as not bare in the warm sand and the cool shallows along the seaward shore, was perceptibly closer to pure beauty than she had ever been before, and could have wreaked havoc in most young men's lives here had she been so minded. Nor was it wholly in her own defence that she went about the camp so discreetly, suppressing her radiance, and avoided contact with her captors but for the young boy who waited on her needs and Turcaill, to whose teasing company she had become accustomed, and whose shafts she took passing pleasure in returning.
    There was a bloom upon Heledd in these days of captivity, a summer gloss that was more than the sheen of the sun on her face. It seemed that now that she was a prisoner, however easy was her captivity within its strict limits, and had accepted her own helplessness, now that all action and all decisions were denied her she had abandoned all anxiety with them, and was content to live in the passing day and look no further. More content than she had been, Cadfael thought, since Bishop Gilbert came to Llanelwy, and set about reforming his clergy while her mother was on her deathbed. She might even have suffered the extreme bitterness of wondering whether her father was not looking forward to the death that would secure him his tenure. There was no such cloud upon her now, she radiated a warmth that seemed to have no cares left in the world. What she could not influence she had settled down to experience and survive, even to enjoy.
    They were standing among the thin screen of trees on the ridge when Cadfael found them. They had seen Owain arrive, and they had climbed up here to watch him depart. Heledd was still staring wide-eyed and silent after the last glimpse of the prince's bright head, lost now in distance. Mark stood always a little apart from her, avoiding touch. She might treat him sisterly, but Cadfael wondered at times whether Mark felt himself in danger, and kept always a space between them. Who could ensure that his own feelings should always remain brotherly? The very concern he felt for her, thus suspended between an uncertain past and a still more questionable future, was a perilous pitfall.
    "Owain will have none of it," Cadfael announced practically. "Cadwaladr lied, Owain has set the matter straight. His brother must work out his own salvation or damnation unaided."
    "How do you know so much?" asked Mark mildly.
    "I took care